James Tarmy has an interesting data point on Bloomberg this morning. He got the Invaluable folks to give up some data on the market for Chinese art and works of art from their array of sales.

Just to give a little context. Sotheby’s sold $554.9m worth of Chinese Works of Art and Chinese Contemporary art in 2015. So what we’re seeing here is a significant portion of the market in volume terms even if it represents a lower spectrum of value:

In 2014, according to Invaluable, the 1,400 auction houses it represents that sell fine art (a category that includes paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, photography, and posters) had a total of $607.9 million dollars in sales. Last year that number grew to $681.8 million, or a 12 percent increase. Drilling down a more esoteric category, we can look at the year-over-year growth for Asian art and antiquities: In 2014 the total was $237.3 million; the next year sales increased 17 percent, to $276.6 million. […]

Put another way, Invaluable’s data appear to demonstrate that there’s been a trickle-down effect: The massive, headline-drawing sales seem to have convinced buyers that art is an investment worth making.

How Is the Art Market Really Doing?  (Bloomberg Business)